Mailbag

Put on your armor

I am not aware of many evangelicals in danger of being labeled "quaint"("21st-century Amish," Nov. 22). Would that we be judged "quaint" in both looks and outlook as were Bunyan's heroes passing through Vanity Fair! What's wrong with being "docile," which means "easy to discipline or train?" This is a rare virtue-as long as the world is not our trainer. Yes, too much of the church is gently following the blind "into the cultural night." But the Amish appear to have seen what constitutes a more meaningful life, and many of the pitfalls of modernism and postmodernism, much more clearly than the rest of us better-educated folks. - Michael McMillan, Duncanville, Texas

Debunking Darwin

Thank you for your thoughtful article on Phillip Johnson's debunking the theory of evolution (Nov. 22). It is getting to be time for evolution to devolve into the ash heap of intellectual and moral history. A thoughtful and scientific study of the unbiased facts reveals Darwinism's deep flaws. - Hendrik Stokvis, stokvis@ntwrks.com

Third Reich troopers

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Gene Edward Veith's review of Starship Troopers (Nov. 22) was insightful and surpassed anything in the secular press. Mr. Veith shows how Paul Verhoeven's youth in Nazi-occupied Holland influenced almost every scene in the movie. All-American boys and girls they ain't. Descendants of the Third Reich they could easily be.Veith should have noted that this R-rated feature is incredibly gory-not just one or two brief scenes, but numerous and extended depictions of war's casualties. - Jim Williams, St. Albans, W.V.

Lingering fraud

Brad Stetson reports that embryologist Michael Richardson recently discovered that Ernst Haeckel falsified the illustrations that accompanied a technical article he published in 1868 ("Raising Haeckels," Nov. 22). These illustrations were used to support his proposal that all animals repeated the supposed steps through which they evolved from the amoeba or single cell stage to the adult animal or person. Wilhem His, a contemporary of Haeckel, showed that these illustrations were fraudulent as early as 1874. And Ian Taylor, in his book In the Minds of Men, says that the erroneous nature of these drawings has been reported from time to time until the present, yet they continue to appear in present day biology textbooks.This is of course one more reason why Christians should be involved in both the book selection process and the operation of the local school system. - Bruce J. Taylor, Jupiter, Fla.

No hate crimes laws, please

In his otherwise fine article, "Repealing morality" (Nov. 22), Cal Thomas goes too far when he says, "Homosexuals deserve [tolerance], with laws protecting them from hate crimes and discrimination in employment (so long as employers are also protected, such as churches and religious schools, which find such behavior offensive to their biblical principles)." So-called "hate crime" legislation enhances penalties for crimes against classes of people, including the class of homosexuals. In Wyoming, we have been fighting hate crime legislation here for the past several years. Hate crime legislation is, by its very nature, inequitable. It sets up a favoritism of classes or distinctions among people not intended by the Constitution. The Constitution calls for equality-that is the lofty standard by which we are to live. Clarence Thomas is right when he says that the Constitution is a "colorless" document. It is also a document without reference to one's sexual orientation. In the main, Cal Thomas is right about the direction in which our leftist thinkers would take us-the same place that it took Sodom and Gomorrah! - Jim Urish, Lander, Wy.

Life or false hope

Thank you for introducing Ed Payne to the layman in "The price of immorality" (Nov. 1). I pray his analysis of the state of modern medicine and his exhortation to the medical community to reform is not falling on deaf ears. Medicine is either application of a philosophy of life, or administration of false hope in exchange for financial gain. Hopefully, Dr. Payne is causing more medical professionals to seriously ask themselves, "In what kind of a society do I want to live and raise my family?" - Don Stroud, Leander, Texas

Need a little Luther

I've always said that there was nothing wrong with WORLD that a little Lutheranism wouldn't cure. The errors concerning the Reformation and the liturgical calendar underline that! God bless your work. - James Bredeson, Baltimore, Md.